69 
2. The Recommendation That All Permissible Recombinant 
DNA Experiments Be Conducted in National Facilities 
Advantages to working in national facilities include: 
(a) Construction funds could be conserved by building 
a few regional facilities rather than constructing 
or renovating space at each institution where this 
research might be conducted. 
(b) Facilities might be more uniformly available to 
qualified investigators from a variety of institutions. 
(c) There could be greater assurance that the facilities 
meet the specified requirements for physical contain- 
ment. 
(d) Training, supervision, and monitoring could be 
centralized. 
(e) Sites could be placed away from population centers. 
The disadvantages of national facilities include: 
(a) Many experiments will require only brief access to 
the facilities on a given day but repeated visits over 
a lengthy period of time. Investigators will find it 
inconvenient and often impossible to carry out such 
"commuter" activities. These difficulties are com- 
pounded by the fact that recombinant techniques are 
often only a small part of the research problem; 
relevant equipment and materials would have to be 
transported repeatedly. 
(b) There will be problems of access and scheduling related 
to the limited number of facilities. 
(c) Competition for access will likely favor established 
investigators and established ideas. 
(d) The Guidelines and pending regulations are already 
imposing a fairly severe rate limitation on the exploita- 
tion of recombinant technologies. To the degree that 
this has occurred so far, such conservatism is probably 
justifiable. There can be no justification, however, for 
further restriction on the independence and opportunity 
of scientific inquiry by arbitrary confinement to a few 
locations for an area of biomedical science whose 
proved benefits have so overshadowed the hypothetical 
risks. 
